Mansfield mining museum celebrates fundraising milestone for memorial project

This fundraising milestone has been achieved through a combination of individual donations, grants from Mansfield Building Society, Nottingham Community Fund, Thomas Farr Charity, Brunts Charity, trade unions and the UK Government’s Shared Prosperity Fund.

Ann Donlan, volunteer and museum trustee, said: “With the donation from the UK Government Prosperity Fund, we are now in a position where we can ask Rachel Carter to begin the process of designing and creating a maquette (a small model of the final commemorative sculpture).

“The process of designing the sculpture will be collaborative and we will hold open events in the museum for this purpose.

“When the maquette is completed in spring 2025 – it will be on display in the museum and at other venues to be arranged.

“We will then commence the bigger task of raising the several hundred thousand pounds required to produce the full-size commemorative sculpture, for the Miners’ Park at Berry Hill, Mansfield.

“We should like to thank all our donors, small and large.”

For more details about the project and its aims, visit: www.facebook.com/NottsMining

Through existing donations, the museum and its volunteers have worked with 150 children in five events at three schools in Mansfield, and with both Mansfield and Ollerton communities.

Rachel Carter, a sculptor who will be working on the project, has created a mining theatre activity kit which enables the museum to share the county’s coalmining history with children in an engaging and original format.